With his upcoming AllDorm catalog, owner Ryan Garman isn’t limiting himself to one prospecting method. The first 100,000 copies of the AllDorm book will be mailed in June to a compiled list of 2002 high school graduates. Later in the summer, participating colleges will send the catalog along with the school’s orientation materials to incoming freshmen.
AllDorm launched its Website in August 2000 and generates a few hundred thousand dollars a year in sales of items such as bedding, lamps, and posters. Garman believes the greater exposure of a print catalog offering these and other products will help turn AllDorm into a $5 million business by the end of 2002.
Santa Clara, CA-based AllDorm is renting the names of graduating high school seniors for $250/M from Cape Coral, FL-based data service provider Acudata America. The file is compiled from surveys that Acudata America sends throughout the school year, asking seniors which colleges they plan to attend, their interests, and what they plan to study. The file is expected to exceed 2 million records.
And by August, Garman hopes to have partnered with 25 colleges to distribute a total of 50,000 AllDorm catalogs directly to students. As of January, he had signed with five schools. To encourage colleges to participate, Garman pledges to give 10% of the company’s sales made through the catalog back to the schools that distribute it.
Garman also plans to provide the schools with samples of dry-erase message boards, which students can stick on their dorm doors for others to leave messages. To finance the freebie, AllDorm is selling the ad space framing the boards.
Although he hadn’t yet decided on a page count for the book, Garman says that the catalog will offer 200-300 products from the 2,000 sold on the Website. Merchandise includes space-saving items such as a small computer desk for $69.99, stackable plastic drawers for $53.64, and a shower basket for $6.95.
From purifiers to message boards
Garman, who used to sell air purifiers, started out hoping to sell the purifiers to college kids to help clean the air in stuffy dorm rooms. “I then saw a huge opportunity based on the fact that college students come to their dorms needing all kinds of items,” he says.
He started putting his business plan together in 1999 based on an e-commerce model “that looked like it could be very profitable,” he says. “That was when dot-coms were booming.” But as the dot-com balloon began losing air, he found it difficult to raise capital.
By tapping his friends and family for funds, Garman has raised more than $450,000 since July 2000. He was planning to begin another round of fundraising for AllDorm in February, seeking $1 million-$2.5 million from individual investors and venture capitalists.